​​A large-scale campaign under the slogan “We Will Rebuild Gaza” was launched on Saturday in Gaza City, with the participation of local organisations and United Nations agencies, in an effort to begin cleaning operations and removing debris left by the war.

 

The scale of the ‘clean up’ is almost unimaginable: 

• Almost 300,000 houses and apartments have been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN’s satellite centre Unosat.
• The United Nations says that it could take more than 350 years to rebuild if the blockade remains.
• 69 percent of the structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed
• The UN estimates that the war has littered Gaza with at least 50 million tonnes of rubble – roughly 12 times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Naseem (right), 22, Abdulrahman (left), 8, and Mohammed, 5, who were forcibly displaced with their family to the southern part of Gaza on Israel’s orders during the war, search for their belongings amid the rubble of their destroyed house, after returning to it amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip. [Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters]

Who is responsible and who is paying?

Israel is responsible for the destruction. It has carried out a wanton campaign of destruction of hospitals, schools and homes unceasingly for the last two years. Yet Israel is not paying for the rebuild, and continues to block urgently needed aid and supplies for the rebuild. 

At this stage, it is unclear and uncertain who will pay to rebuild Gaza, if anyone. European and Arab nations, Canada and the U.S. appear willing to contribute to the estimated $70 billion needed to rebuild Gaza, but there are no firm commitments.

Meanwhile, the Israelis have long barred the entry of basic construction materials – including cement, metal pipes and steel – into Gaza, insisting that they are ‘dual use’ items that Hamas could use to build underground tunnels for military purposes.

Gazacide = settler colonial ecocide

Gazacide includes the widespread and organised damage to the environment and life-sustaining systems caused by the Israeli military, which is seriously harming Gaza’s natural resources and agriculture, putting the area’s future at risk.

Israel has done everything possible to make Palestinian survival impossible. This is  to drive people out of Gaza (and the West Bank) in order that it can be settled by Israelis. Gazacide encompasses Israel’s approach in Gaza since the 1948 Nakba.

Zero waste: against genocide and apartheid

Equity, justice, human rights, indigenous self-determination and environmental protection are intimately connected. Colonial oppression and violence and other mindsets that permit the exploitation of people and planet create widespread environmental injustice that will never be compatible with a zero waste future.

We stand against the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people that has resulted in mass death, injury, forced starvation and displacement of civilians, amounting to ethnic cleansing.

We also condemn the Israeli military’s acts of ecocide against Gaza in the context of its genocidal violence, including damage to critical infrastructure needed to manage waste, wastewater and sewage; the targeting of heirloom plants such as olive groves; a military carbon bootprint of hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of GHG emissions; and the long-term contamination of air, water and soil from the extensive bombing in urban areas that has converted roughly one fifth of Gaza’s built environment and the possessions it contained into toxic rubble.

We call for an end to Israel’s occupation and apartheid in Gaza and the West Bank. No one is free until all are free, and the land will not be well until all people are well.